Nigerian artist, Kizz Daniel has made a buzz within the past week with his “My G” challenge that has gone viral, particularly on TikTok. The challenge has got people highlighting expensive items that they own and citing their costs in sync with the song’s lyrics.
The “My G” challenge has caught the attention of many celebrities, including, to name a few, Davido, Toke Makinwa, and Iyabo Ojo. Their participation has helped to whip up even more buzz around both the challenge and the song.
Kizz Daniel is no stranger to using social media to promote his music. He has, in the past, urged his fans to partake of dance challenges to his songs. His 2022 hit Buga, featuring Tekno, was driven to the top of music charts in part due to the viral Buga Dance Challenge accompanying it. Likewise, Cough, a single also released last year, has its accompanying dance challenge to thank for its popularity and commercial success.
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMjVxJswA/
His latest single, My G seems to be going that route, as the Tiktok challenge has now had about 26,000 entries since starting a week ago. The challenge started last Monday, after Kizz Daniel released the song’s music video, three months after the song was released as a single in July. My G, as well as Buga and Cough, are all part of Kizz Daniel’s fifth album, Maverick, which was released in August.
TikTok has named My G as one of the most popular sounds on the app currently. This brings attention to how instrumental social media, TikTok in particular, can be in helping artists to reach a wider audience. A shining example can be found in Nigerian artist Ckay, who, in 2020, was propelled to global stardom, in part due to the brilliance of his song Love Nwantinti, but also because he was a benefactor of the virality promised by social media. Two years after its release, Love Nwantiti would be set to dance routines on TikTok, aiding it becoming a global phenomenon.
Kizz Daniel has previously avowed social media as a viable music distribution tool. “Social media is definitely playing a big role. Right now, you have a lot of indie artists doing well, and they have social media to thank for this. Once you have good material, put it out there and back it up with good content. That’s what I did with Buga; I came up with a dance idea; I said go low then raise your shoulder, and people loved it. It did well on social media and got close to 4 million views on Tik Tok. So, a big shout out to social media,” the 29-year-old said in an interview last year.
There are other instances that make it hard to ignore the impact of TikTok’s organic marketing on the music industry. It is why many artists are now focused on promoting their songs on the platform.
In July, the company rolled out a test feature of a dedicated music-marketing service called TikTok Music to some of its users. The idea is to revolutionize music marketing using organic social media marketing, to help artists generate streams and expose their music to a global audience. Earlier in March, another feature called Sound On was launched to drive music marketing and distribution and to help new artists grow their fan bases by cashing in on the app’s 1 billion users.
While nothing is set in stone yet, it’s quite evident that Kizz Daniel’s “My G” challenge is gaining a lot of traction and engagement, giving it so much potential to become another of Kizz Daniel’s viral songs. Even more, may be his ticket to becoming a global TikTok sensation.